Monday, October 23, 2006

Breaking a sacred contract. Homeless Veterans

I have ranted and raved about this issue for some time now, usually when I was so pissed off that I couldn't think clearly. This morning I am feeling much more subdued and frankly, sad. I know we are getting close to the election, I know we have all given probably more than ever before, I know I have. On top of everything political, among all the scandals and outrages, behind the sinister shredding of our constitution and The Military Commissions Act of 2006 There is the ongoing travesty of veterans with no place to live.

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Their numbers vary from around 250,000 to 500,000.

Their circumstance vary. The one thing they have in common is they are all veterans of the american military machine and they have all been let down by our goverment and by us. There is no other contract more sacred than that between a citizenry and it's soldiers. Because we are a democracy we are suppose to be the ones in charge. It is up to us change the structure of support for these men and women of our armed forces.

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans will end homelessness among veterans by shaping public policy, promoting collaboration, and building the capacity of service providers.

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV) -- a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization governed by a 13-member board of directors -- is the resource and technical assistance center for a national network of community-based service providers and local, state and federal agencies that provide emergency and supportive housing, food, health services, job training and placement assistance, legal aid and case management support for hundreds of thousands of homeless veterans each year.

NCHV also serves as the primary liaison between the nation's care providers, Congress and the Executive Branch agencies charged with helping them succeed in their work. NCHV's advocacy has strengthened and increased funding for virtually every federal homeless veteran assistance program in existence today.

There is absolutely no excuse for the lack of treatment and care for our veterans. Please support our troops in a liberal progressive manner. Not the empty rhetoric of the right. You can donate what you can, join a vet advocacy organization, or Locate a Community-based Organization

The facts are that the US government in it's present form simply isn't doing enough to take care of these people. And that is just plain wrong.

"It's horrible to put your life on the line and then come back home to nothing, that's what I came home to: nothing. I didn't know where to go or where to turn," says Mr. Noel. "I thought I was alone, but I found out there are a whole lot of other soldiers in the same situation. Now I want people to know what's really going on."

Beyond the yellow ribbons

Both the Veterans Administration and private veterans service organizations are already stretched, providing services for veterans of previous conflicts. For instance, while an estimated 500,000 veterans were homeless at some time during 2004, the VA had the resources to tend to only 100,000 of them.

dollars a YEAR on military expeditures and can't take care of it's vets is beyond me. You think more could be done just by accident with that kind of money. Again, that's $441,800,000,000. Let that sink in.

This is the amount of money the US has allocated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to be spent by September 30, 2006, the end of the fiscal year. And the Senate is working on a spending bill that will add another $50 billion more in spending for 2007.

Using one dollar bills.

This pile is 125 feet wide, 200 feet deep, and 450 feet tall.

450 feet is the height of a 38-story building. It's the hieght of the Millenium Wheel in London. It is also the height of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas and the Louisiana State Capitol Building.

If you were to stack the money in a single stack, your stack would be 19,887 miles tall, enough to wrap the Moon at its equator almost 3 times.

I still can't wrap my brain around these figures. Honestly I have no idea how we can't be taking care of our vets properly. WTF is going on here.

I joined up with them a few months ago. You don't have to be a Vietnam Vet to join. I am particularly fond of this organization as it was started right here in my hometown by a man a know and admire. This is another great resource and these people put their hearts into helping vets.

Legend has it that in Vietnam, sometime in 1969, two soldiers from the same hometown (Rockford, Illinois) met up with each other on a hilltop near Pleiku...and promised each other that if they ever made it back home, they would get together sometime for dinner, and to talk over their wartime adventures. Whether or not, the legend is true doesn't really matter...but sometime in the early 1980s, a group of Vietnam veterans did come together to share their experiences, and talk about what Vietnam had meant to them.

From those beginnings, VietNow was formed...first with a group in Rockford that just kept growing and growing and growing, until a few years later, the group went national, forming chapters all around the country. Since those days, VietNow has changed with the times...starting with a focus on the Vietnam experience, and along the way picking up on veterans and veterans issues right up to the present day.

But no matter what the issue, VietNow's primary focus has always been on the veterans and the families of the veterans.

Keep the faith brothers and sisters. Remember our vets. We owe them.

Here is complete and updated resource for contact information about your Congress Critters.

Give them a shout and tell them what you expect from them on the treatment and funding for our vets.

Peace Out.

I've added this from the comments below. Thanks to paxpdx for the reminder.

So yeah - by all means, call Congress, join organizations, exert pressure - but don't forget to take the time to talk to these guys. It's not hard to find homeless vets - go to any shelter, any soup kitchen, any social service agency that serves homeless and mentally ill folks, and there they'll be.

1 Comments:

If we don't do everything we can for the vets we have chewed up and spat out for the Chimperor's Oedipal fixations, we don't deserve to exist as a country anymore. And I am not the least bit reticent to say that.

Moreover, it isn't just the vets themselves getting the shaft-every yellow-magnet "patriot" should be required to spend a week in the shoes of the soldiers' families, many of who are now having to basically beg to get enough to eat.